The Radioactive Family

Well, it's time to go against the majority, against the traditionalists, against the christian way to see the family. Time to give the nuclear family the boot and introduce the Radioactive Family.

Sound radical enough to you? Well, in some respects, it isn't, but in other, my point of view is quite radical, even for a liberal country like Sweden. I'm talking about the New family, in every way it may represent itself. Let's face it: the mother, father and child model is giving way to new models with multiple parents.

The first step towards the new family is of course the divorces, which have become quite common. The family split into two, and suddenly a child can have two fathers and two mothers. This is old, and not that radical. It's a way of life for many, and has been for a few decades. What is slightly more radical is to give the new parents the same rights as the biological parents. In Sweden, a proposal has been made to give the new partners of parents the status of official guardians, allowing them to continue to see the child even after a new divorce/separation, all to gain more stability for the child. This will make it easier also for new partners to feel a part of the entire family, and of course also for the child in question.

This is all a step towards what I have chosen to name the Radioactive Family. The reason for this is simple, although it may be a bit typichal for me, a guy educated in science. The nuclear family is deterioating, but it remains. What we get when the nucleus of an atom falls apart is radioactivity, radiation. Hence the Radioactive Family. It also has a broader meaning: the new family and the values that accompany it are, and will be for some time forward, a hot issue. Politicians, liberal and conservative, are debating and will be debating what should and what should not be allowed in this new family form. Issues I will address later in this article will give you good examples of this. This constant activity is consistant with a radioactive nucleus, and so we have another good reason for the name.

I would say I am very liberal in my opinions of this new phenomenon, in fact I have views that go against the majority of Sweden, and I would think even more people in the United States disagree with me on my values and standpoints. Shall we take a look?
I am all for this Radioactive Family, because I don't think that a child, or any person involved, gains from an unhappy marriage. Better to split up the family, and start anew. This is not a very radical idea, but that should be mentioned.
What may be more radical is the fact that I support this new law, that will give the new partners of the parents the official status of guardians for the child or children, giving them the rights and the obligation to take care of them. Not that it should be compulsory, but the choice should be there, and it should be easy to fix with a single signature on a pice of paper.
But now, for the really radical ideas.

It is an undesputed fact that some men and women who divorce their partners and parents of their children not always gets into the same kind of relationship again. Now, I am not talking about not choosing a partner that resembles the former partner, I am talking about something completely different: the man or woman moving on to live in a homosexual relationship. This is of course quite a radical change of premises for everyone involved, and where does this leave us? Right now, there is no big difference; homosexual couples and heterosexual couples have the same rights, here in Sweden anyway, except that the Church of Sweden does not allow homosexual couples to get married (usually), but they may enter "partnership", which has the legal status of a marriage. In our case of the family, the new, homosexual partner of a parent has the right to adopt the child, should no other relatives be available when the parent(s) die.

The question now is: should the new, homosexual, partner be allowed to be the guardian of a child, just by being the new partner of a parent? This question has been raised because of this new lawproposal. The Christian Democratic Party of Sweden does not think so, while other parties think it could and should be possible. The people have said that normal adoption for homosexuals is not something they would like, but just with a simple majority, not a qualified majority of at least 75%. I say: why not? Why should homosexual couples be any different from heterosexual couples. I can't argue against the fact that homosexuality is unnatural, because nature wants the species to copulate and give birth to new specimens, but there are homosexual persons nonetheless, and they are normal people just like anybody else. Saying that a homosexual person should not be allowed to adopt a child, or denying a homosexual person a job because of his or her sexuality is no different than denying someone this because he or she is from another country, because he or she is handicapped in some way, or because he or she happens to have a hearing aide or glassess! Discrimination of this sort can't be a part of a modern and democratic society, no more than corruption or denial of civil rights such as the freedom of speech and the right to have your own opinions.

Given that I am not a trained psychologist or therapist, I may be completely wrong, but I do not think so. I meet children a lot as a scoutleader, and I see these new families, and they work. I hope there may be more rights for these new families in the future, the near future. I hope that I can inspire others to support these views, and I hope that a more liberal attitude, based on everyones equality and everyones well-being, will grow. The new Radioactive Family is here to stay, but as the years go bny, the radioactivity decreases exponentially. In a couple of decades time, who knows? Perhaps the picture father, father and child may be as natural as the nuclear family or the single parent of today?